just before departing for his annual holiday vacation in hawaii, president obama leaders to take action on crisis. karin caifa reports from washington, where members of congress have also left town. >> good afternoon, everybody. >>reporter: after speaking with party leaders friday afternoon, president obama called on congress to quickly come up with a solution to avert some end- of-year tax hikes associated with the fiscal cliff. >> in the next few days i've asked leaders of congress to work towards a package that prevents a tax hike on middle class americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million americans and lays the groundwork for further work on both and deficit reduction. >>reporter: the remarks came after house speaker john boehner failed to muster enough of his party's support to bring his "plan b" to the floor. his proposal would have effectively raised taxes only on those americans making more than one million dollars a year. >> we had a number of our members who just really didn't want to be perceived as having raised taxes. >>reporter: the two sides each left the cap